Pakistan can help America, but Kashmir may be the price

12:00AM BST 15 Sep 2001

SIR - Dr Zaki Badawi of the Muslim College in London said on the BBC's breakfast television programme that it still had to be proved that the perpetrators were Muslim fundamentalists because "this [act] is contrary to the laws of Islam".

Any doubt Dr Badawi has should be weakened by evidence from actual witnesses to the crimes. It is reported that, when Jeremy Glick telephoned his wife from one of the doomed airliners, he said that the hijackers were all wearing red headbands.

One of the companions of Mohammed, Abu Dujana, wore a red headband in battle. This became known as the "red band of death" and, when he wore it, it was known to all that Abu Dujana was determined to fight to the death. It has subsequently been adopted by "soldiers of Allah" who wish to die a martyr's death.